New Wolfpack coach pitches plan for football revival

First-year N.C. State coach Dave Doeren speaks Monday at the ACC Football Kickoff.

The Associated Press

By Adam Smith / Times-News

Published: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 at 01:10 AM.

GREENSBORO — North Carolina State last claimed an Atlantic Coast Conference football championship in 1979, a title-less span of nearly 34 years that new coach Dave Doeren finds interesting rather than daunting.

“Yeah, that intrigued me, to be honest with you,” he said Monday at the ACC Football Kickoff.

Here’s why.

Northern Illinois had experienced a Mid-American Conference title drought of almost three decades until 2011, Doeren’s first season there, when the Huskies captured their first league championship since 1983 while equaling a school record with 11 victories.

Then Northern Illinois did it again last season, repeating as conference champs, setting a school record for wins with 12 and securing a spot in the Orange Bowl — the first-ever BCS berth for a MAC team.

Doeren said he feels as if he has “a similar blueprint” from which to work with the Wolfpack.

“Northern hadn’t won it in 28 years and they had been a good program for a long time,” he said. “These guys had been a good program for a long time and hadn’t won the league.

GREENSBORO — North Carolina State last claimed an Atlantic Coast Conference football championship in 1979, a title-less span of nearly 34 years that new coach Dave Doeren finds interesting rather than daunting.

“Yeah, that intrigued me, to be honest with you,” he said Monday at the ACC Football Kickoff.

Here’s why.

Northern Illinois had experienced a Mid-American Conference title drought of almost three decades until 2011, Doeren’s first season there, when the Huskies captured their first league championship since 1983 while equaling a school record with 11 victories.

Then Northern Illinois did it again last season, repeating as conference champs, setting a school record for wins with 12 and securing a spot in the Orange Bowl — the first-ever BCS berth for a MAC team.

Doeren said he feels as if he has “a similar blueprint” from which to work with the Wolfpack.

“Northern hadn’t won it in 28 years and they had been a good program for a long time,” he said. “These guys had been a good program for a long time and hadn’t won the league.

“This one — and not that we’re going to win as fast — but this one might be easier in the fact that I’m taking over a team that just lost a bowl game and maybe underachieved, compared to Northern that had just won 11 games when I got hired.”

The 41-year-old Doeren, with his 11-year-old son Luke sitting by his side in a black N.C. State cap and listening, looked tanned and summery as he met with reporters at Grandover Resort.

His understated manner of responding to questions, sometimes with his face devoid of expression, certainly cut a different figure in comparison to the coaches of the Wolfpack’s nearby rivals here Monday.

North Carolina’s Larry Fedora gestured constantly with his hands and took sips from a can of Red Bull while Duke’s David Cutcliffe folksy charisma was on display.

Transitioning into his job at N.C. State, Doeren is presented with another challenge that holds similarities to his brief tenure at Northern Illinois — the Wolfpack will be breaking in a first-year starting quarterback this season, just as the Huskies did each of the last two years.

That situation unfolded exceptionally well for Doeren at Northern Illinois. Chandler Harnish (in 2011) and Jordan Lynch (in 2012) each quickly became highly productive dual threats while collecting the MAC Player of the Year award.

Doeren said junior Pete Thomas finished spring practices ahead of sophomore Manny Stocker the Wolfpack’s quarterback competition, but emphasized that Brandon Mitchell, who graduated from Arkansas and will play his final season at N.C. State, arrives as a factor at the position for training camp.

Doeren said it clearly would be his preference to settle on a quarterback starter prior to N.C. State’s season opener Aug. 31 against Louisiana Tech.

“If we can name one, we will,” he said. “And if we can’t then we’ll compete a little bit and let a guy win it in the game.

“In a perfect world it’d be decided before the first game, but I can’t tell you how it’s going to happen until we start practicing.”